Austerberry hails 'outstanding' Saracens ahead of Bristol clash

Saracens Director of Women’s Rugby, Alex Austerberry, branded his team’s win against Harlequins as “outstanding”.

The 47-10 result against their London rivals got the three-time Premiership Women’s Rugby winners off the mark for the league season and provided an instant response to their 40-14 defeat in Round 1 to Gloucester Hartpury.

Getting back to winning ways was a must for a club that is looking to end a four year hiatus as English champions this season.

It was a result which Austerberry was buoyed by, although he knows that there is still work to be done by his team.

“It was an outstanding result at the weekend, but there are still bits we’ve got to learn from the Quins game,” Austerberry said.

“The key to the Gloucester result was taking learnings from there. There was still some positives but the scoreline was not where it needed to be.

“We’re really happy with the result, really happy with the way that we’re progressing.”

What was clear from Saracens’ seven try victory was that they had stayed true to themselves.

There was no shirking of ideology or fading into the background for the Londoners, who opened the scoring through Alysha Corrigan with less than two minutes on the clock for her first of the contest.

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“I think you look at the entrances into the 22m in Round 1 and Round 2, they’re not too dissimilar in terms of volume,” Austerberry said.

“But the end product was much higher. This weekend we were far more clinical in those areas, took the opportunities early and then got the momentum of back-to-back scores.

“And then the key to it as well, set piece. Working off a far higher percentage of set-piece gives you a lot of lot of platform.”

This Sunday the North London club will travel to the South West to take on Bristol Bears.

It will be Bears’ second league outing of the season. Under the guidance of new head coach Scott Lawson, Bristol subjected Leicester Tigers to a 74-0 drubbing in which Millie David scored four tries.

The two clubs tested one another in the PWR Cup. On that occasion Saracens were 45-28 winners at StoneX Stadium.

Two months on from that encounter Austerberry expects that the West Country side will not be too dissimilar from the outfit they have been in recent years.

“We have had a test of what the new version of Bristol is, with a new coaching team in place,” he said.

“That, twinned with the other fixtures that we saw in the Cup and the game against Leicester, there’s still similar trends

“They’re looking to move the ball, they’ve got incredible threats on the edge, and we know they’ve got a fairly decent pack when they’ve got everyone there.

“They’re a team that will challenge you around set piece and will look to manipulate you in space and put you away.

“There’s been some subtle changes but there’s a lot of similarities to the teams that have been very successful for Bristol over the last couple of years.”